Calgary police say all uniformed members to wear body cameras by end of 2016

Calgary police say it’s expanding the use of body cameras to all uniform members.

Since August, the service has been testing a phased roll-out of the cameras to District 1 and Traffic to determine how well they function and how the operating procedures work in different circumstances.

It says it will pause the roll-out to other areas of the service to go over what information has been captured and lessons learned can be adopted.

The police department says all uniform members on the front line will be wearing body cameras by the end of 2016 or the beginning of 2017.

Police say body cameras are activated when officers are responding to a call or come across an incident requiring investigation, but it won’t record an officer’s entire shift due to privacy issues, storage capacity and because every situation does not merit the collection of video.

The service says it will have a public education and awareness campaign to ensure Calgarians are aware that when they are interacting with a Calgary police officer in uniform that it’s possible the interaction will be captured on the body worn camera.